American Cupcake: Red Velvet Fried Chicken

The Original Dish: Red Velvet Fried Chicken from American Cupcake

American Cupcake is a hip restaurant in the Marina District in San Francisco. Michael and I have been dreaming of going to this place for almost a year and during finals week, we finally went.

All we ever talked about was trying their Red Velvet Fried Chicken. The chicken came with a side of cream cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, and cocoa-powdered coleslaw. The restaurant and the meal looked amazing and inventive and we were excited to indulge ourselves with the sinfully chocolaty taste of the red velvet batter and the savoriness of the chicken underneath the fried, crispy layer.

American Cupcake's Red Velvet Fried Chicken with cream cheese, mashed potatoes, and cole slaw.

The meal was prepared in less than twenty minutes. The plate of food looked overwhelmingly delicious, with three colossal pieces of chicken (thigh, leg, and boneless breast) piled on top of the mashed potatoes and coleslaw. With our knife and fork, we wasted no time removing the flesh from the bone of the chicken. The build-up of the moment was finally coming to its climax and then we took our first bite.

The chicken was good, but we underestimated the sweetness of the dish. My palette was basically tricked because the savoriness of the chicken was underplayed by the sweetness of the cake batter. The other components of the meal were moderately tasty. The Red Velvet Fried Chicken needed to burst with seasonings, especially salt, which it lacked. The meal was about $15, which is way out of my budget considering the taste of the fried chicken and working at KFC for a year. But it was on a square plate, which makes everything bougie; so, I guess the price is understandable.

But American Cupcake is a really good place to eat due its creative and whimsical atmosphere and menu. The menu is very diverse, containing items from bubblegum cupcakes to candy cocktails accompanied with a fancy peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It is definitely a fun place to eat out.

The Delicious Double Take
Due to our limited funds, we remade our version of the dish on a small budget, which included using a boxed red velvet batter cake mix. However, it was still very tasty and gave the meal a couple elements we thought were missing from the original.

First, we seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. We also added the same seasonings to the flour base, which we used to coat the chicken before and after it was covered in the red velvet batter. The chicken was triple breaded, which make it crispy, crunchy, and delicious. Garlic was the secret ingredient that made everything better. We even recreated the cream cheese and garlic mashed potatoes and coleslaw from scratch.

A few alterations: we substituted American Cupcake’s vinaigrette dressing with a creamy mayonnaise and apple cider vinegar dressing, which was a more balanced combination of salty and sweet. Also, the only type of potatoes we had in the house were Yukon gold potatoes which made the mashed potatoes yellow in color and we also left the skin on for a more filling meal. American Cupcake skinned their potatoes and probably used Russet potatoes, which made their mashed potatoes white.

If we remade our own remake of the Red Velvet Fried Chicken, we would probably avoid using the cake mix from the box and instead make our own.